Web host and design myths

A list of some myths we have encountered over the past 15 years in the NZ Internet industry with helpful resources at the end of the article.

1. If you have a small web site and or only 1 email address, Google offer you a free service.
2. There are hundreds of web site addresses that may suit your business more adequately than .com or .nz but your web company can not make money on the others so will not tell you of them.
3. .com address is cheaper to own and maintain than .nz .
4. Many will use a site template for most of their customers and then on charge you for the original design of the template as well as the modifications you request.
5. Most popular web site systems or Content Management Systems are free to use and offer thousands of free templates, this includes eCommerce and Blogs. It only takes hours to customise these sites.
6. Many will tell you that you need to host your web site with them for a large number of false reasons.
7. Often a specialised system will be created making it technically difficult for you to change companies.
8. Companies often advise that it is too technical and that it is easier and cheaper if they maintain your domain name and charge you between $20 and $200 per annum when all they do is act as a middle man for your invoice.
9. In more serious cases you will not own your domain name but will pay an annual rent for it to your web host.
10. If your request is not in the standard set of knowledge of the company, you will be changed for their staff to learn the technical side of your request. Alternatively you will be told that it is not possible – only because the company do not want you to go else where.
11. Most web site updates take only a few minutes yet are charged out as a full hour of development. Updates to your web site should be charged in increments of 15 mins based on an hourly rate of less than $50.
12. Very few design companies have experts related to your web hosting requirements and will often contract in a third party or the reseller to attend to your requests thus generating time delays and more expense.
13. Social Media FaceBook, Bebo, Twitter etc are the new Internet being utilised by many international commercial entities to maximise their web presence. Web hosting companies can not make any money from this so they will not tell you about it.

Questions to ask your web host provider *

1. Where are your web servers located and who owns the servers?
2. How many people work at your company and how many people are responsible for customer service?
3. What customer support is available, ie Phone, email or web based. Some companies only offer web based support with a 48 hour turn-around period to reply.
4. What is the response time of your customer support?
5. What hours does your customer support team work?
6. How often are the sites backed up and how quickly can you access a backup?
7. Are there any charges in obtaining a backup?
8. Apart from the monthly or annual hosting fees, what other services will you be charged for ?. This is extremely important as most web services should be made available as part of your hosting plan.

*Sourced from http://www.community.net.nz/how-toguides/it/publicationsresources/ownership.htm  where you can also see more details of considerations when acquiring web hosting.